


a woman like the ocean

by orphan_account (Lacquiparle)



Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Alec Hardy Needs A Hug, Blink and you will miss the reference to joe, But also sorry, Denial of Feelings, F/F, Falling In Love, Fluff, One Shot, Other, Pre-Season/Series 01, Sorry Not Sorry, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:33:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25776700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lacquiparle/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: As teenagers, Ellie and Beth were fast friends until Ellie uncovers more about herself that she can no longer deny.(a one shot based off revelatory information about Ellie's character that will be the death of me.  Thanks,Chinball)
Relationships: Alec Hardy & Ellie Miller, Beth Latimer/Ellie Miller, Ellie Miller (Broadchurch)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	a woman like the ocean

**Author's Note:**

> AGGGGHHHH! I found out Chibnall initially wanted Ellie to be a lesbian, and upon learning this information, I _lost my mind_ and wrote this thing today. It just makes so much sense! So, I had to write my feelings out, i.e. the great Lesbian Dilemma of coming to terms with loving other women. 
> 
> Also, I totally ship Hardy X Miller, but Soft Lesbian Ellie is just... so soft. *feelings*
> 
> (Title is a reference to _The Women Who Hate Me_ by Dorothy Allison)

They ran long- limbed and raggedy bodied across the beach until their faces glowed ruddy and their shoes frayed at the edges. If one couldn’t keep up, the other grabbed her hand and laughed merrily. Pulling her along. 

“Come on,” one girl coaxed. One way or another, they ran feral that summer until Beth met Mark and the summer waves crashed brutally around Ellie.

Ellie didn’t understand why she held a grudge against her wild other half after Beth met Mark, but something about their final summer together spoke tormented gulls to her. Beth was a fledgling but knew things that Ellie didn’t. What fags to buy and which wild mushrooms would make a person sick. Ideas that appeared significant and world expanding.

The girls drove around in Ellie’s 1952 Morris Minor that would periodically break down, and then they would have to hike over the chalk downs until their exertion gave out. They laughed and collided into each other from fatigue, sharing secrets to each other and the forlorn hills. 

That summer, that exquisite summer, the car broke down and they fell giggling on a hill. Beth pulled a fag from her pocket and the two girls ruminated about how much longer they would have together. Ellie wanted to move away—to Norfolk or even London—to attend uni and to experience the world. 

Beth rolled over onto her side, the fringe from her cutoffs tickling the soft skin behind her legs, and she brushed her fingers against the stirring hairs on Ellie’s forearm hair. 

“I’ll miss you.” Beth whispered slowly and she let her hand move downward to graze Ellie’s fingers. 

The tumult in Ellie’s stomach proceeded to bang an uproar until she felt Beth’s smoke-filled mouth graze her own. Wet and hot, the younger girl proceeded to tentatively, apprehensively kiss Ellie. It was soft. Softer than any of the boys Ellie had ever kissed, and the strange sensation lurking in the pit of her stomach gave rise to something deeper. A yearning she had always wanted. To kiss Beth, and to touch her and be touched in return. 

She pushed Beth away and stalked off. Anger built deep within herself. Anger toward Beth and at herself for wanting her friend so intimately. 

The dulcet, smoking taste in her mouth resided until all that she tasted was a sensation of longing. 

The summer seemed to continue without incident. The Morris Minor periodically broke down and the girls fled each scene without a skirmish. Sprinting through the grass and over the countryside, their cheeks became tanned and their hair grew long. They felt nature at their very fingertips. 

The odd, shame-filled feelings continued for Ellie. When she and Beth swam at the beach, and she saw Beth in a bikini, her body beckoning and thin and circuitous to any intentions, Ellie averted her eyes for fear of exposure. She worried that she was no different than the boys who gawked at and harassed them when they went for 99s. Or Ellie’s sole boyfriend who pawed at her breasts and voraciously fingered her in the back of his car despite her protestations. 

That’s just how blokes are, her mother warned and told her to be careful. They want one thing. 

Ellie felt herself draw away from Beth, reclusive due to the novel sensations inside her psyche. Ellie was ill, yet she wasn’t ill. The sickness overwhelming her was something else and she wasn’t sure how to face it.

The summer carnival brought something else when, atop the Ferris wheel, Beth tentatively attempted to hold Ellie’s hand. Immediately, instinct grabbing her by the throat, Ellie felt her hand dart away. 

“Are you alright?” Beth wanted to know, but Ellie did not know how to painstakingly explain to her friend that she was in love with her, but she couldn’t be. She wasn’t even sure there was such a word for that type of love and desire except humiliation. “I want to hold your hand.” Beth reiterated, a hallow of lights illuminating her face. 

Beth said it so clearly and without embarrassment, as though the desire to touch Ellie or run without civility through the meadow or kiss her on the mouth was not out of the ordinary. Love perhaps was something more opaque than customary performance but rather desire, Ellie thought. What were the stakes to desire except something she could not have? 

Suddenly, Beth reached up and brushed Ellie’s hair away from her face.

“Why do you, though?” Ellie knew she was digging deep, wanting to understand Beth’s motivations. Perhaps friends kissed each other, she thought.

Beth shrugged. “I dunno.” She grabbed the bar and a whimsical expression spread across her face. As Ellie thought, Beth seemed to understand these things so much better than herself. “Like, I just wanted to kiss you. And when I did, I liked it a lot.” Then, “did you?”

Ellie cautiously nodded. 

“It’s not like when I’ve kissed a boy.” 

“How is it then?” Ellie asked. 

“Better.” 

The Ferris wheel ground to a halt, the lights trembling and dancing around them in an unbridled textile. Ellie ruminated on the thought that swirled in her head, the intimate moments she had shared after the kiss, and how her friendship with Beth meant so much. How desperately she wanted to touch her friend, but she thought, not as a friend. What tenderness she felt toward Beth, and at the thought, what emotions spread unfathomable longing of affection Ellie felt for her. 

Beth grinned and leaned in, kissing Ellie. She felt no hesitation, her tongue slipping into Ellie’s mouth. The sensation lit up Ellie’s whole being, and she kissed Beth in return, wholeheartedly. 

When they pulled away from each other, they were both grinning from ear-to-ear, as though a revelation had dawned on them. 

“I want to be with you,” Ellie blurted out, and Beth responded by squeezing Ellie’s hand. 

Years later, Ellie thought back on her summer with Beth. Their innocent kisses and touches, to the first time they finally made love. It was all so innocent and pure, Ellie thought, her eyes scanning yet another file and another case. How guiltless it all felt unlike this new case her boss dropped on her desk, her phone perched in the confines of her shoulder as she attempted to navigate several procedurals at once.

Ellie never quite understood what Beth saw in Mark and how painful it was to hear that Beth had fallen pregnant. Ellie had irrationally begged Beth to run away with her—first love, sort of thing—but Beth seemed to believe she loved Mark and wanted this life with him. 

It all seemed so strange. And now Beth’s son Danny was dead, and that reservoir of emotion was littering a field of concern she hadn’t thought about since they had first kissed each other so long ago. 

Ellie’s wife told her that’s how closeted queer women behave. Run from their feelings, Ginny said in their backyard under their remodeled covered BBQ, rocking Fred to sleep. Ginny wanted another baby, but Ellie felt a new pain soaking in the pit of her stomach. About Beth. About loss and grief. 

Ginny didn’t push her, of course, about Ellie’s feelings concerning Beth or the question Ginny had interrogated about a third child. But Ginny, nuzzling Fred into her neck, had looked up their previous sperm donor and informed Ellie he was still available. Some bloke going by the initials—“J.M.” It would be nice for their children to have the same sperm donor, Ginny said. Ellie must have nodded as Ginny handed Fred to her. 

Ellie looked up at her partner who asked if Ellie would carry the baby again. Ginny, her hands on her narrow hips, exhaled and raised her eyebrows. Of course, it was open for debate, but Ellie, pressing Fred against her breast, said she wouldn’t mind. Ginny’s job demanded more physically. 

“What about that arsehole new boss of yours?” 

Ellie rolled her eyes and murmured _exactly_. She gazed down at Fred’s cherubim face with his blonde curls, which logically, he must have inherited from the sperm donor. Ginny was puttering around their garden, pulling weeds and muttering to herself about what new flowers would go well with their new BBQ. Ellie overheard Ginny say something about inviting Beth and Mark over, to try the thing out.

Ellie smiled. She liked to believe that he inherited those golden curls from his other mother, the other mum whose hair would go even more rogue than Ellie’s, especially when she was pondering and reflecting intently. 

That night, after Ellie and Ginny decided a finality about trying for a third baby, Ellie looked over at Ginny, her flaxen colored hair fawning the pillow, her lips cracked open from a deep sleep. After their decision, Ginny had pulled out her digital notepad and began making notes, but Ellie forced her to put it away. They made love instead, focusing on the “what-ifs” rather than the “what-haves,” a joyous pleasure Ellie enjoyed inflicting upon her analytical wife. 

The "what-haves," Ellie thought, could wait. 


End file.
